Match Review of Kolkata Knight Riders vs. Pune Warriors

Indian Premier League - Match review
Date : 19th May 2011 Match No. : 65
Teams : Kolkata Knight Riders vs. Pune Warriors
Venue : D.Y. Patil Stadium, Navi Mumbai
Umpires : S. Ravi & Simon Toffel Third Umpire: S. K. Tarapore
Toss : Kolkata Knight Riders won the toss and elected to Field

Playing XI

Kolkatta Knight Riders Gautam Gambhir © S. P. Goswami Manoj Tiwari Yusuf Pathan Rajat Bhatia Bret Lee Jacque Kallis Ten Doeschate Shakib Ul Hassan Iqbal Abdullah L. Balaji

Pune Warriors Jessy Ryder Manish Pandey C.J. Ferguson Saurav Ganguly Robin Uthappa Yuvraj Singh © S. Rana W.D. Parnell Alfonso Thomas B. Kumar R. Sharma

All sparks expected to fly when Pune Warriors would host Kolkata Knight Riders at the D Y Patil Stadium in the 65th match of this season. Saurav Ganguly, who captained the Kinght Riders for 3 seasons, would be up against the same team. The Warriors so far have failed to impress and lost most of their matches without putting up a fight. However, their spinner Rahul Sharma had an outstanding tournament and has turned out to be a great invention for the Indian cricket team. The Riders on the other hand have been consistent and inspiring in all departments of the game.

The Warriors positioned at the 9th place have no chances of qualifying to the knock out phase. The Riders on the other hand would do everything possible to win this battle as the war for a place in the play offs is intensifying.

The pitch at the D Y Patil stadium expected to turn out to be nice batting surface. A total of above 150 should be competitive. The team winning the toss should look forward to batting first. The Knight Riders captain won the toss and elected to field.

Put into bat, the Warriors innings was opened by Jessy Ryder and Manish Pandey. They both have failed to leave an impression as they have not been able to convert their mid-20 innings to a match winning knock. Keeping up to their reputation, the first wicket was lost in the 2nd over itself when Ryder while trying to take off the bowling of Pathan completely mis-timed the shot and was caught by Tiwari.

Pune's problem had already begun and they got aggravated when Pandey was caught plumbed in front of the stumps off the bowling of Iqbal Abdullah. Two wickets down for just 17 runs on the score board. Ferguson and Ganguly were at the crease way before they would have expected to. It was appropriate payback time as the team was in trouble and Ganguly also had a lot to settle against the Knight Riders. But it turned out to be a tough fight for Ganguly as the Riders spin duo Yusuf Pathan and Abdulla exploited the spin available in the track to the best possible.

With lot of struggle the two managed to put up 27 runs together before Ferguson got out to Shakib Al Hasan on a delivery that left him clueless. Ganguly was now joined by Uthappa when Warriors were 3 down for 44 in the 9th over. It was long overdue on part of Uthappa, the most explosive batsman of the Warriors batting line up to come out with flying colors and display his potential. Ganguly played few very elegant shots, but was soon removed by Hasan cheaply on 18 of 22 balls hitting one six. The night belonged to the Rider spinners as they made it a real fight for the batmen score rapidly. As run rate always remained less than 6 Uthappa was forced to go hard and lost his wicket when Lee took a sharp catch off the bowling of Yusuf Pathan. The home side was in some serious trouble with 79/5 in the 14th over.

The Skipper Yuvraj Singh and Rana were the two new men at the crease. Yuvraj was again expected play a heroic innings. The two tried to accelerate the pace and took the total to 113 until the skipper got out after scoring 24 runs of 26 balls. With a small contribution from Rana, the Warriors reached a total of 118 runs

119 was a modest total looking at the Riders batting line up. In the absence of the regular opener Kallis, the skipper Gambhir came out to open the innings along with Goswami. The home side struck early and removed Goswami when the team total was just 7 runs. Manoj Tiwari joined the skipper to take the innings further. He put up a strong partnership stand with Gambhir to take the total past the half century mark.

The temperature in the middle of the ground went up when few words got exchanged between Manoj Tiwari and Jessy Ryder. The former lost the concentration and lost his wicket to B Kumar after scoring 24 runs in as many balls. The Riders were scoring at a decent pace and were 53 in the 8th over.

Gautam was now joined by the great hitter Yusuf Pathan and made a quick 29 of 25 deliveries hitting three 4's and one 6. He got out when the team need just 2 runs to win. Gambhir and Bhatia finished the innings for the Riders in the 17th over. Gambhir played the captain's unbeaten knock of 54 of 46 deliveries.

With this win the Riders went up to the third position above the Mumbai Indians.

Result: Kolkata Knight Riders won by 7 wickets and secure place in Play-offs

The Awards

Man of the match
Yusuf Pathan for all round performance with ball and bat

Maximum Sixes
Yusuf Pathan for hitting one 6's

Kingfisher Fair Play Award
Chennai Super Kings top the chart

Orange Cap (The leading run scorer)
Shaun Marsh, Kings XI Punjab.

Purple Cap (The leading wicket taker)
Lasith Mallinga- Mumbai Indians

Question of the day?
Does Gautam Gambhir make the finest captain on IPL season-4?



Last Updated on 23 May 2011